LAST week saw the Opposition leader Tim Nicholls visit parts of Logan City with Logan mayor Luke Smith.
Their tour brought them into our community, with Yarabilba and Flagstone among their stopping points.
According to Mr Nicholls, he also experienced first hand the challenges motorists face when traversing the Mount Lindesay Highway.
While it is heartening to see these politicians ‘walk the walk’ of our region, and even ‘talk the talk’, what is really needed is action with money put behind it.
As Cr Smith told Jimboomba Times, Logan is situated in the fastest growing corridor in the country.
This alone will result in the people who live, work and play in our region facing more than highway frustrations if infrastructure and amenity does not soon start catching up with population growth.
Around this time last year, when campaigning was under way in Queensland’s local government elections, Cr Smith – then a mayoral candidate – proposed putting $4 million of Logan City Council’s money into public transport across the region.
As Jimboomba Times commented at the time, $4 million is not a lot of money given how thinly it would be spread across the city, but it was a policy idea that Cr Smith hoped would encourage the state government to put more of its own money into public transport in Logan.
This masthead receives many complaints about growing traffic problems from people who live or own a business along the stretch of highway between Jimboomba and Beaudesert.
Traffic issues are negatively impacting on commerce and also on home and family life.
Work on the highway must continue, but so too must there be planning and action on public transport and infrastructure.
Solutions are clearly needed and they will only be effective once politicians transform the walk and talk into decisions and action.